


Kirkwall Thunderstorm

by hes5thlazarus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: City As Character, Family, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Hawke (Dragon Age), Stream of Consciousness, joy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28890633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: Family squabbling as the storm sets in, Hawke flees to face the thunderstorm head on, and laughs, because what's more to life than this, chasing a storm all the way down to the harbor?
Relationships: Hawke & Kirkwall
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Kirkwall Thunderstorm

There’s thunder rolling down from Hightown and Mother’s convinced it’s going to flood, and has Bethany running around the house in a panic stopping up holes. Hawke can’t handle the shouting and the worry and they know Mother’s just trying to cope and Lowtown floods all the time but Gamlen’s not helping with his grumbling and Dog is cowering under the table, crying as lightning flashes outside, and if Carver were here. Well, Carver isn’t and honestly Carver would probably make things worse, Bethany is the only one who has an ounce of sense in this family, though Father sometimes led her by example. Water starts leaking from the ceiling in their bedroom and Mother starts screaming at Gamlen when he laughs and that’s when Hawke says, “Alright then, I’m--going for a walk.”   
  
“It’s raining!” Bethany says exasperatedly, but the door is already swinging with the full force of a coastal storm and Hawke is grinning, dragging it back closed. The usually bustling streets are empty and there is already a rivulet of muddy water swarming down the quarry drains, and Hawke leans against the door of Gamlen’s house and sighs because now there is a human quiet, thank the Maker, there is only the wind and the water and the muffled quarrel behind them, and this door is a shield.   
  
Thunder rolls down the mountain and Hawke smiles to themselves and opens their eyes and counts: one, two, three lightning crackles the limestone walls blue rather than dirty. The storm is coming from the Sundermount. Maybe it’s the witch, Flemeth, or Asha’bellanar, whatever the Dalish mage called her. She seems chaotic enough, powerful enough, to try to shape the weather to her will, and Bethany’s said that’s what her primal magic does on a small scale, creates a zone of atmospheric interference and then honestly Hawke stopped listening, but if the Veil is so thin here that spirits of the damned walk Darktown, then maybe a dragon lady can make it rain. Why would she do that? For the same reasons Hawke would: the pure primal pleasure of it.   
  
Lowtown’s streets are quickly becoming creeks which means Darktown has become a series of canals, and Hawke gingerly picks their way down the steps and follows the lines of force. The water laps at their ankles, and Hawke shivers as banners flap and awnings tear, Lady Elegant is waterproofing the stalls in the market corner and of course Hawke turns away ostentatiously, because no one knows she’s a mage, there are no mages outside of the Gallows of course, unless you count the Dalish out of the Sundermount. Lady Elegant shouts a greeting over the roar of the storm and Hawke waves, the Hanged Man is swinging outside the pub, and they hurry to the doorway just to rest for a second. The wind’s taking their breath away. They could get in, get Varric to stand them a round, and maybe that Rivaini captain will still be there, and that angry Tevinter elf too, and Varric will tell them all a story over cards and Isabela will top it (or them, preferably) with a tale of the high seas and the elf will prove to have a sense of humor--but why would they want to leave the storm outside?   
  
Winds shriek and the rain lashes against their face, the sign of the Hanged Man creaks ominously over their head but Hawke is happy to stand suspended in the threshold, alone and not alone, watching their neighborhood hunker down. Below them Darktown is surely flooding and they’ll go check on that Anders guy and Lirene from the Ferelden Workers’ Association and see if anything needs doing, or bailing, but right now the water is clean on their skin, their boots resist the flood, and they can hear Kirkwall in the thunder. If Kirkwall could talk, it would sound like thunder down the Sundermount, shaking Hightown and Lowtown alike, raining seeping through the limestone mansions and Darktown slums, mold growing phosphorescent with the thoughts of angry mages, spirits trapped in that old jet stone. Rain wakens the rock and all its angry thoughts. Hawke thinks, it’s time to move on.   
  
The wind settles and the rain becomes vertical again. Hawke slops down towards the docks, hugging their arms and trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Varric says they’re a mugging magnet but they never lose and always come off with more money than they started with, because they’re fast and Bethany is scary with those curses, and sometimes Hawke thinks Kirkwall likes them. They get to the docks, which are almost deserted but for a few wharfrats lingering the shadows behind some barrels. They nod at them, they’re friends of Samson and thus friends of Anders and Isabela, but not friends of Varric and Aveline--Hawke tries to keep track of all the tensions of the people who have gathered around them, but there is so much left unsaid and Hawke doesn’t want to say it. But in the distant thunder, the storm is breaking over the harbor, and now the rain has soothed to a gentle patter and maybe Darktown only slightly flooded this time, because the ships are bobbing at the docks and the docks are not a canal.   
  
Hawke is so, so tired and it hits them in the rain that this is what they want, all they want, the storm breaking over the distant Sundermount, ships creaking in the harbor, and the clean scent of possibility breaking through the miasma of the Foundry’s despair. Mother says Kirkwall stinks worse in the rain but they don’t think so, it clears through the millennia of depressed phosphorescence and washes it all anew. Seagirt the city shines, jet cliffs boldly cutting through the horizon, Hightown’s marble glimmering, and Lowtown flashes blue in the lightning. Even Darktown’s being washed charming, because the sea has come to Kirkwall, roiling down the mountain. They know the Twins are flanking them, those poor screaming slaves, but maybe now they’re yelling in triumph. It’s unlikely thinking but Hawke was brought to Ferelden partly through the intervention of a woman who can turn into a dragon and eat darkspawn, so they lean into the unlikeliness fondly, and even though they’re soaked, even though they’re freezing, they summon up that human warmth and spread their arms out and laugh, because they’re not dead and this is their city and they’re not dead, yet.


End file.
